


Siren Song

by cheinsaw



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Depression, Gen, Hallucinations, Kink Meme, Suicidal Thoughts, these tags make it sound so bad i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 12:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8327701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheinsaw/pseuds/cheinsaw
Summary: The killing game is over, but part of him is still there. (Or, Naegi is the only person to live through the suicide video.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> for the kinkmeme! full prompt:  
> In DR3, when Naegi watches the suicide video, the state of distress it puts him into breaks completely as soon as Sakakura distracts him enough and then never returns.
> 
> I'd like to see something hurt/comfortish in which getting out from under the video's brainwashing influence isn't that simple. He's not hallucinating and determined to kill himself 24/7, but after the game is over and they move on with their lives, Naegi either experiences occasional relapses (mild fits of despair, full suicidal episodes) or deals with more subtle long-term issues (depression, susceptibility to distorted thinking, nightmares, etc).
> 
> The hurt part can be piled as high as you want it (catharsis is gr8), but I'd like a hopeful ending - recovery, potential for or partial recovery, the notion that this won't beat him even if it's here to stay, that kind of thing. Support from friends would be A+. Any ship (or no particular ship) is fine, just make Naegi hurt and then reel him up out of it.
> 
> i hope i was able to do this justice - i wrote most of it in a hotel at 4 in the morning. nevertheless i really enjoyed writing it!

_ I'm coming soon. _

The suicide song is not meant to be lived through. But Naegi does.

 

_ You don't get to kill yourself after that,  _ Sakakura says. He's right. Naegi knows he's right. Naegi's meant to live. Naegi is alive.

 

It happens all too suddenly, sometimes. It always did, back in the first killing game, and again in the second. The memories come back to him so strongly they still feel like the present. And Naegi is no stranger to terror, to fear, to unrelenting despair.

It has been a month.

Kirigiri is alive, breathing, heart beating, but Naegi too often turns in the night and sees not her sleeping face but her poisoned corpse, blood dripping down from her left eye. No Cure W can fix this. He has forgotten how to scream.

 

He dreams of a girl stabbed in a shower, a boy beaten to death with baseballs.  _ Didn't you say you'd help me leave? _ Sayaka Maizono's bloody mouth asks, smiling that angelic smile. _ Why weren't you the one to die instead? _

It would be so easy, he thinks. Much easier to die than to live like this.

Is this despair?

It's Asahina who finds him after who knows how long, huddled in the corner of the bathroom, trembling and unable to move. He doesn't know what she's saying, too far down to understand. But her hand on his shoulder is real and true, and that's worth more than anything.

It has been three months.

 

Naegi can't get out of bed some days. A heavy, invisible force pushes down on his limbs and his eyes, ache settling into his bones. Junko Enoshima's face is all he can see on the back of his eyelids and on the plain ceiling.  _ Ultimate Hope? _ she scoffs.  _ Don't make me laugh. _

 

_ We're all hurting _ , Kirigiri says to him one day.  _ Please don't keep your pain to yourself. _

_ I know, _ Naegi says, but he can't meet her eyes.

 

Out of the corners of his eyes he sees Sakura sometimes. She was always the strongest. Sakura should've lived. Everyone should've lived. Naegi cannot count how many times he's wished he could sacrifice himself for all of them.

A biker, a programmer, a soldier girl he never knew. A gambler, a doujin artist, a hall monitor. More than half the Future Foundation's leaders. All of them gone.

 

Sometimes, he will think of the 77th class, and it brings a smile to his face. They're all doing so well. It's exactly the kind of hope the world needs - Ultimate Despair rehabilitated into happy, whole people again.

They are all alive, and they have each other. Naegi can't deny the twinge of jealousy in his heart.

 

He meets with Munakata sometimes, though their conversations are short at best. There are too many things both of them would rather be left unsaid. They've both seen it: the very rock bottom of despair, where all their loved ones are dead and there's no future to hope for.

Perhaps it doesn't need to be said. There are no words that could describe it, anyway.

 

Naegi's head hurts. He has always been an optimist, has always kept moving forward. He thinks that his heart may just stop from all this.

It has been six months. His heart is still beating strong.

 

The skies seem bluer now, flowers growing up out of cracked pavement and clean air replacing smog and smoke. The world is rebuilding itself, piece by piece.

Naegi's mind still whispers horrible things to him: ten bodies left behind in a makeshift morgue, a shackle on his wrist, a virus that resurrects the end of the world. But he's gotten better. The night is darkest just before the sunrise, as they say.

 

The suicide song was not meant to be lived through. But Naegi has. And he intends to keep it that way.

 


End file.
